In this debate, we will be arguing on whether or not the majority of illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay within the US. I'll be Pro. My Opponent will be Con. Here are the rules:

1: A forfeit is an automatic loss, unless there is an apology for the forfeit in the comments or in the debate.
2: The BoP is on Con because he is the one wanting to make something illegal.
3: I will waive the 1st round and Con will waive the last round.

Pro has stated in the comments that everything should be legal unless there is one good reason for it to not be legal. I will now provide one good reason and Pro will have automatically conceded. Because "good" has not been defined, it will be automatic. No rules have been presented against semantic arguments.

As I have said, because "good" was not defined, I may write anything I want and Con has automatically conceded.

Round 2

Published: 11.23.18 02:22AM

"Because "good" has not been defined, it will be automatic." What does automatic mean in this context? I'm legitimately confused.

"Pro has stated in the comments that everything should be legal unless there is one good reason for it to not be legal." I said at least one reason and that's what it means to be a libertarian. If there is no reason to be against something, why be against it?

"As I have said, because "good" was not defined, I may write anything I want and Con has automatically conceded. " Your not making sense. I have not conceded.

Anyway, here are some arguments for Illegal Immigration:

1: They are significantly less likely to commit crime then native born Americans(NBAs).(1)(2) The main exception for this is coming into the country illegally, and stepping foot into a foreign country is a trivial crime that should not be punished by deportation. In many situations, deportation of family members breaks up f amilies, which causes the kids to become orphans which are expensive to manage. It's easier if the parents do it.

2: They pay taxes(3). The ones that commit tax evasion should under the current law be charged for this, not being in the country illegally.

3: While most don't know English, a solution to this could be forcing them to assimilate in English classes that they pay for out of their own pockets. This way, it's not free education, since they would pay for it. If they refuse to assimilate, then they continue to pay for the classes. If they can't afford it, then they pay for it in labor by building solar panels in the South West US desert. This way, we benefit from the immigrants and they assimilate too since they don't want to work on solar panels for the rest of their lives. We can also sell the excess energy to other places, therefore providing them with renewable energy.

4: Although they take jobs, they also create them in the form of businesses. The jobs they do take are because they tend to be better then native born americans at them.

5: The population increase is necessary for some invasion policies that I want, but I digress.

6: Although some illegals get free education, the ones that do are assimilated and these assimilated immigrants would down the road, pay for the education of others. Non assimilated ones would get assimilated as I pointed out in bullet point 3 and they would pay for other people's education without receiving any education themselves.

Illegal immigration has been shown to have negative effects on workers legally in the United States. It lowers the minimum wage because there is a higher supply of workers [1], and most of them work minimum wage and low-skill jobs [2]. It takes jobs from people who were born here:

One recent estimate by researchers at the Pew Hispanic Center puts the number of illegal aliens in the workforce at 8 million out of an overall population of 11.2 million illegal aliens, i.e., 71.4 percent.1 That estimate is generally accepted as reasonable. [3]

Illegal immigrants also raise the crime rate:

David Frum of The Atlantic, no hard-core immigration opponent, wrote in 2015 that as of 2011, there were 25,000 illegal immigrants serving murder sentences, and nearly 3 million offenses committed by illegal immigrants between 2003 and 2009, including 70,000 sex crimes and hundreds of thousands of other violent crimes. “After years of welcome decline,” Frum pointed out, “crime rates are rising in immigration hubs including Houston, Milwaukee, Phoenix, and San Diego.” Former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo reported in 2015 that between “2008 and 2014, 40% of all murder convictions in Florida were criminal aliens. In New York it was 34% and Arizona 17.8%. During those years, criminal aliens accounted for 38% of all murder convictions in the five states of California, Texas, Arizona, Florida and New York, while illegal aliens constitute only 5.6% of the total population in those states.” [4]

This shows that illegal immigration is not beneficial and has many negative effects.

Rebuttals

Pro says

They are significantly less likely to commit crime then native born Americans(NBAs).(1)(2) The main exception for this is coming into the country illegally, and stepping foot into a foreign country is a trivial crime that should not be punished by deportation.

Stepping foot into a foreign country is not the only crime illegal immigrants break. In fact, there are around a hundred laws and court rulings that illegal immigrants break [4]. In addition, all these deaths [5] could have been prevented if we did a simple thing such as enforce our border. Pro makes a fallacy that even if his source is correct, they still commit murder and violent crimes that could have all been prevented. This is also a moral licensing fallacy [6]. Pro says

They pay taxes(3). The ones that commit tax evasion should under the current law be charged for this, not being in the country illegally.

They may pay taxes, but they pay way less than what it takes for the government to have them in this country [7][8]. Pro says

While most don't know English, a solution to this could be forcing them to assimilate in English classes that they pay for out of their own pockets. This way, it's not free education, since they would pay for it. If they refuse to assimilate, then they continue to pay for the classes. If they can't afford it, then they pay for it in labor by building solar panels in the South West US desert. This way, we benefit from the immigrants and they assimilate too since they don't want to work on solar panels for the rest of their lives. We can also sell the excess energy to other places, therefore providing them with renewable energy.

This is irrelevant and fallacious in many ways. First of all, the problem isn’t that they don’t know how to speak English. It’s that they are in the country illegally. This argument doesn’t even concern whether or not immigrants should speak English. I don’t really care right now as long as they are in the country legally. Second of all, working in the desert against their will is basically slavery would violate the 4th and 13th amendment. It would also be opposed by somewhere like the SPLC or ACLU and the UN would probably block it. It also is not currently in the law and therefore is not a reasonable argument for illegal immigration. Pro says

Although they take jobs, they also create them in the form of businesses. The jobs they do take are because they tend to be better then native born americans at them.

Pro provides no proof for this but even if it were true they make less than the government spends on them [7]. Pro says

The population increase is necessary for some invasion policies that I want, but I digress.

Again, it is not currently in the law and therefore is not a reasonable argument for illegal immigration. Pro says

Although some illegals get free education, the ones that do are assimilated and these assimilated immigrants would down the road, pay for the education of others. Non assimilated ones would get assimilated as I pointed out in bullet point 3 and they would pay for other people's education without receiving any education themselves.

They produce less tax dollars than the government spends on them [7] and I have pointed out the fallacies in bullet point 3.

Conclusion

Illegal immigration would have an overall negative effect on citizens of the US and the economy. Back to Pro.

“It lowers the minimum wage because there is a higher supply of workers” I thought conservatives like us wanted to keep a low to no minimum wage. I have separate reasons for this, but the minimum wage amount has less to do with worker supply and more to do with policies enacted by the government.

”It takes jobs from people who were born here:” They also create jobs(1).

“One recent estimate by researchers at the Pew Hispanic Center puts the number of illegal aliens in the workforce at 8 million out of an overall population of 11.2 million illegal aliens, i.e., 71.4 percent.” We need the workforce numbers as we have an aging population and the US population would be declining if it weren’t for immigration. If your pointing to their high unemployment rate, this can be solved by the government providing them with a different job. I have some ideas. If they are unemployed, you would accuse them of being lazy. If they have a job, you would accuse them of taking people’s jobs. Either way they would face an accusation.

“David Frum of The Atlantic, no hard-core immigration opponent, wrote in 2015 that as of 2011, there were 25,000 illegal immigrants serving murder sentences, and nearly 3 million offenses committed by illegal immigrants between 2003 and 2009, including 70,000 sex crimes and hundreds of thousands of other violent crimes.” Just because some illegals commit violent crimes does not mean you punish the whole illegal population. It would be like me punishing all gun owners for the crimes of only a few of them. Either way, punishing an entire group for the actions of a few individuals is Social Justice, which is a left leaning ideology. I don’t support Social Justice for anyone, gun owners or illegal immigrants. Can you justify the inconsistency?“Stepping foot into a foreign country is not the only crime illegal immigrants break.” Cis.org is a far right source according to 2. Also most if not all of those crimes would be less prevalent if illegals were allowed to stay within the US.

“In addition, all these deaths [5] could have been prevented if we did a simple thing such as enforce our border.” If their homicide rate is lower than NBAs as what my sources have stated, then they are safer. If it’s more, you still don’t judge the group because of a few murderous individuals. The concept of punishing a whole group for the actions of a few people in that group is Social Justice, something we both hate and I imagine most of the voters would hate as well.

“they still commit murder and violent crimes that could have all been prevented.” NBAs also commit murder. Do we deport all legal americans as a punishment for the actions of a few? No. You have yet to adequately explain why we should treat illegals worse then NBAs.

“They may pay taxes, but they pay way less than what it takes for the government to have them in this country”. They don’t pay much in taxes because they are poor. If they were allowed to live and work within the US, then they would get a good job and pay more taxes. There are many Americans who don’t pay taxes, or pay some taxes, but not enough to subsidize their existence within the US. Should we deport all those who don’t pay taxes because they aren’t rich enough?

“This is irrelevant and fallacious in many ways. First of all, the problem isn’t that they don’t know how to speak English. It’s that they are in the country illegally.” What’s wrong with being in this country illegally? If you answer, “because they are here illegally” then saying that (being illegal is bad because it’s illegal) is circular logic.

“working in the desert against their will is basically slavery” It wouldn’t be against their will. If they don’t like it, they can move back to Mexico or whatever country they came from voluntarily rather then forced deportation.

“would violate the 4th and 13th amendment.” The 4th amendment is, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” How does it violate the 4th amendment? The amendment is about being searched, not about working on a government project. It does not violate the 13th amendment because they are consenting, therefore the servitude is voluntary. As I said before, if they don’t like it, they can go back to their home country.

“It would also be opposed by somewhere like the SPLC or ACLU and the UN would probably block it.” Actually, if the workers are consenting as I pointed out earlier, then the UN would probably see it as a way to put clean energy in the US and would approve the practice. The SPLC and ACLU would approve it, seeing it as a pathway to citizenship. They wouldn’t be working too long. Only enough time to pay for their food, shelter and assimilation fees and if they wanted to work more for more money, that was their choice. I estimate that they would be working about 4 hours a day at most in order to pay the above expenses. Once they are done with classes and working, the rest is essentially free time.

“Pro provides no proof for this but even if it were true” (1)“Again, it is not currently in the law and therefore is not a reasonable argument for illegal immigration.” The US has an aging population and our reproduction is below replacement level (3). We need immigrants to keep our population up. They can help bring up our population along with legal immigrants. If someone comes into the country illegally, they should be assimilated within American society. This does not mean American society assimilates for them, but they are to assimilate within American society. Granting a pathway to citizenship seems relatively useless if they were DACA because they are usually not a threat to American society since they lived their childhood in the US. Do you support deporting DACA personnel even though they are about as American as us? As for non DACA illegals, they should be assimilated but not deported.

Conclusion:

What’s the point of becoming legal in the 1st place? If it’s to see if your American enough (which you have stated is not the case), then anglophones irrespective of their legality status should be allowed in the US. The rest should be assimilated in classes that they pay for. If it’s to prevent gangs from coming into the US, the gang members can get punished for the crimes that are committed within the US as if they were a legal citizen. While some illegals are messed up, that does not mean that the whole group is messed up, just like just because mass shooters are messed up does not mean all gun owners are.

“It lowers the minimum wage because there is a higher supply of workers” I thought conservatives like us wanted to keep a low to no minimum wage. I have separate reasons for this, but the minimum wage amount has less to do with worker supply and more to do with policies enacted by the government

Pro calls himself a conservative in this paragraph but has previously called himself a libertarian, which is contradictory. Pro also asserts that I do not support the minimum wage because I fit under his file of “conservative.” Besides, this has nothing to do with the debate whatsoever, because we are arguing about illegal immigration, not the political opinions of the participants

”It takes jobs from people who were born here:” They also create jobs(1).

Pro uses New York Times which has a very large reputation of being a left-wing media outlet. Besides, we wouldn’t need all these work permits and other laws if we simply enforced our border. This would reduce lots of confusion.

“One recent estimate by researchers at the Pew Hispanic Center puts the number of illegal aliens in the workforce at 8 million out of an overall population of 11.2 million illegal aliens, i.e., 71.4 percent.” We need the workforce numbers as we have an aging population and the US population would be declining if it weren’t for immigration. If your pointing to their high unemployment rate, this can be solved by the government providing them with a different job. I have some ideas. If they are unemployed, you would accuse them of being lazy. If they have a job, you would accuse them of taking people’s jobs. Either way they would face an accusation.

In fact, many baby boomers are refusing to retire because of the state of the economy and it is hurting Gen X and Millennials who are facing a shortage of jobs (https://nypost.com/2018/06/04/baby-boomers-are-refusing-to-leave-the-workforce/) . When the baby boomers finally do retire, it will hurt Gen X and Millennials because the illegal immigrants will be holding up jobs. And again, nobody cares if you have some ideas. They are not currently in the law which means they are not a valid argument for illegal immigration. Pro asserts that I would think a certain way, which I might not.

“David Frum of The Atlantic, no hard-core immigration opponent, wrote in 2015 that as of 2011, there were 25,000 illegal immigrants serving murder sentences, and nearly 3 million offenses committed by illegal immigrants between 2003 and 2009, including 70,000 sex crimes and hundreds of thousands of other violent crimes.” Just because some illegals commit violent crimes does not mean you punish the whole illegal population. It would be like me punishing all gun owners for the crimes of only a few of them. Either way, punishing an entire group for the actions of a few individuals is Social Justice, which is a left leaning ideology. I don’t support Social Justice for anyone, gun owners or illegal immigrants. Can you justify the inconsistency?

We would not be punishing them. They are not supposed to be in the country in the first place! All those deaths could have been prevented if not for our do-nothing government that is too concerned with hurting the immigrants feelings. How can you justify that? It would not be a punishment, IT’S THE LAW. And it is most definitely NOT social justice.

“Stepping foot into a foreign country is not the only crime illegal immigrants break.” Cis.org is a far right source according to2. Also most if not all of those crimes would be less prevalent if illegals were allowed to stay within the US.

If you actually knew how to read, you would realize that the CIS source I cited quoted government studies, which are not biased. Besides, mediabiasfactcheck is a website where users can input what they think, which makes it not a reliable source. People could bot it and make NPR an Extreme Right source. It’s not reliable. AND, you use NPR as a source, which has admitted its liberal bias (https://www.mrc.org/bozells-column/npr-admits-liberal-bias). This is an ad hominem attack because Pro is not rebutting the source but simply saying he doesn’t like it because it doesn’t align with his ideology.

“In addition, all these deaths [5] could have been prevented if we did a simple thing such as enforce our border.” If their homicide rate is lower than NBAs as what my sources have stated, then they are safer. If it’s more, you still don’t judge the group because of a few murderous individuals. The concept of punishing a whole group for the actions of a few people in that group is Social Justice, something we both hate and I imagine most of the voters would hate as well.

We would not be punishing them! They are not supposed to be in the country! They are not citizens! Murder is an additional crime some illegal immigrants commit and that breaks even more laws! It is not a punishment!!!!!!

“they still commit murder and violent crimes that could have all been prevented.” NBAs also commit murder. Do we deport all legal americans as a punishment for the actions of a few? No. You have yet to adequately explain why we should treat illegals worse then NBAs.

"They may pay taxes, but they pay way less than what it takes for the government to have them in this country”. They don’t pay much in taxes because they are poor. If they were allowed to live and work within the US, then they would get a good job and pay more taxes. There are many Americans who don’t pay taxes, or pay some taxes, but not enough to subsidize their existence within the US. Should we deport all those who don’t pay taxes because they aren’t rich enough?

No. We don’t. Do you know why? Because they are legal citizens.

“This is irrelevant and fallacious in many ways. First of all, the problem isn’t that they don’t know how to speak English. It’s that they are in the country illegally.” What’s wrong with being in this country illegally? If you answer, “because they are here illegally” then saying that (being illegal is bad because it’s illegal) is circular logic.

My answer is “because they here illegally.” It is against the law to do anything illegal, so therefore it is bad. It’s quite simple if you think about it.

“working in the desert against their will is basically slavery” It wouldn’t be against their will. If they don’t like it, they can move back to Mexico or whatever country they came from voluntarily rather then forced deportation.

Really? No crap!!! That should happen in the first place (they should go back to their country) or maybe they should go to a legal port of entry and actually become citizens.

“would violate the 4th and 13th amendment.” The 4th amendment is, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” How does it violate the 4th amendment? The amendment is about being searched, not about working on a government project. It does not violate the 13th amendment because they are consenting, therefore the servitude is voluntary. As I said before, if they don’t like it, they can go back to their home country.

Yeah, well maybe if you actually understood that due process has SOMETHING to do with the 4th amendment then you wouldn’t be rebutting that. And now, you have changed plans. Before, and I quote, you stated

If they can't afford it, then they pay for it in labor by building solar panels in the South West US desert.

This implies that it would not be voluntary. This is basically forcing someone to do something against their will, which is basically slavery, which violates the 13th amendment.

“It would also be opposed by somewhere like the SPLC or ACLU and the UN would probably block it.” Actually, if the workers are consenting as I pointed out earlier, then the UN would probably see it as a way to put clean energy in the US and would approve the practice. The SPLC and ACLU would approve it, seeing it as a pathway to citizenship. They wouldn’t be working too long. Only enough time to pay for their food, shelter and assimilation fees and if they wanted to work more for more money, that was their choice. I estimate that they would be working about 4 hours a day at most in order to pay the above expenses. Once they are done with classes and working, the rest is essentially free time.

This is completely invalid because yet again, it is not currently in US law, which means it is not a valid argument for illegal immigration. I was just giving a rhetorical rebuttal.

“Pro provides no proof for this but even if it were true” (1)“Again, it is not currently in the law and therefore is not a reasonable argument for illegal immigration.” The US has an aging population and our reproduction is below replacement level (3). We need immigrants to keep our population up. They can help bring up our population along with legal immigrants. If someone comes into the country illegally, they should be assimilated within American society. This does not mean American society assimilates for them, but they are to assimilate within American society. Granting a pathway to citizenship seems relatively useless if they were DACA because they are usually not a threat to American society since they lived their childhood in the US. Do you support deporting DACA personnel even though they are about as American as us? As for non DACA illegals, they should be assimilated but not deported.

Again, I cite the NY Post source relating to the aging population. They should not be assimilated because they are illegal, and therefore should not be in the country. So they should not be citizens.

Round 4

Published: 12.02.18 05:25PM

“Pro calls himself a conservative in this paragraph but has previously called himself a libertarian, which is contradictory.” They are similar ideologies and I support a mixture of the 2. But this is a distraction from the core, so let's drop it.

“Pro uses New York Times(NYT) which has a very large reputation of being a left-wing media outlet.” Although New York Times is biased, their factual reporting is high according to https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/new-york-times/, which is a reliable source for bias checking, with the exception of Wikipedia. Also, NYT doesn’t even right all left wing articles. Here is an example of a right wing anti sharia law article they wrote:

“Besides, we wouldn’t need all these work permits and other laws if we simply enforced our border.” If we didn’t care about legalization status then they wouldn’t need work permits. What’s the point of getting legalized anyway? Given that it takes years for immigrants to become legalized, there has to be a good reason for legalization.

“One recent estimate by researchers at the Pew Hispanic Center puts the number of illegal aliens in the workforce at 8 million out of an overall population of 11.2 million illegal aliens, i.e., 71.4 percent.” We need the workforce numbers as we have an aging population and the US population would be declining if it weren’t for immigration. If your pointing to their high unemployment rate, this can be solved by the government providing them with a different job. I have some ideas. If they are unemployed, you would accuse them of being lazy. If they have a job, you would accuse them of taking people’s jobs. Either way they would face an accusation.“In fact, many baby boomers are refusing to retire because of the state of the economy and it is hurting Gen X and Millennials who are facing a shortage of jobs (https://nypost.com/2018/06/04/baby-boomers-are-refusing-to-leave-the-workforce/)”. You accuse me of citing biased sources? You do realize that NY post is not neutral(https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/new-york-post/). Their factual reporting is mixed, compared to NYT’s fact reporting being high. But assuming this source was reliable, it states the reason why baby boomers are leaving the workforce and more to do with the Great Recession, and longer life expectancy. The article doesn’t state much on immigration.

“When the baby boomers finally do retire, it will hurt Gen X and Millennials because the illegal immigrants will be holding up jobs.” Some illegals inevitably create jobs as well in the form of businesses. When they do take jobs, it might be because the illegals are better at them.

“And again, nobody cares if you have some ideas.” Why not? What’s wrong with tangent ideas that state how to deal with immigrants?

“David Frum of The Atlantic, no hard-core immigration opponent, wrote in 2015 that as of 2011, there were 25,000 illegal immigrants serving murder sentences, and nearly 3 million offenses committed by illegal immigrants between 2003 and 2009, including 70,000 sex crimes and hundreds of thousands of other violent crimes.” Just because some illegals commit violent crimes does not mean you punish the whole illegal population. It would be like me punishing all gun owners for the crimes of only a few of them. Either way, punishing an entire group for the actions of a few individuals is Social Justice, which is a left leaning ideology. I don’t support Social Justice for anyone, gun owners or illegal immigrants. Can you justify the inconsistency?“We would not be punishing them.” You don’t believe in punishing illegal murderers with anything other then deportation? I think that the illegals who committed murder should be punished by death. However, any illegal that did not commit murder or a crime (other than being here illegally) should not be punished or deported.

“They are not supposed to be in the country in the first place!” Given that the only reason you stated for why they shouldn’t be allowed to be in the country is that they are illegal, what’s wrong with being here illegally? If you say it’s because they are illegal, then that sir is circular logic.

“How can you justify that?” I don’t justify murder but I don’t want the illegals who never committed murder to be punished for a murder someone else did.

“And it is most definitely NOT social justice.” Social justice is punishing/rewarding a group for the actions of the individual or due to discrimination that the individuals never directly experienced.

Many on the far left wants to punish all gun owners for the murders of a few of them by taking away their right to own guns, even though most gun owners will never commit murder.

Many on the far right wants to punish all illegals for the murders of a few of them by taking away their right to be in the US, even though most illegals will never commit murder.

Can’t we just have freedom since the vast majority of guns and illegal immigrants will never be involved in murder?

“If you actually knew how to read, you would realize that the CIS source I cited quoted government studies, which are not biased.” This will sound crazy at first, but although .gov sites tend to be reliable, just because it’s a .gov site doesn’t mean there is no bias to it. An example is the EPA. They have a left leaning bias even though they are a .gov source.

“Besides, mediabiasfactcheck is a website where users can input what they think, which makes it not a reliable source.” Users can often imput what they think, but the site says that they don’t take poll ratings into account when determining their bias level.

“People could bot it and make NPR an Extreme Right source.” Only a tiny fraction of people bot the survey. What does it mean to Bot?

“This is an ad hominem attack because Pro is not rebutting the source but simply saying he doesn’t like it because it doesn’t align with his ideology.” Both of us have done this. I say that makes us even.

“We would not be punishing them!” Deporting is a punishment.

“They are not supposed to be in the country!” The only reason you have stated is because they are illegal. But what’s wrong with being here illegally?

“It is against the law to do anything illegal, so therefore it is bad. It’s quite simple if you think about it.” There are many things that are legal yet evil. There are also many things that are illegal, yet totally okay. Just because they are illegal does not mean that it is wrong for them to be here.

“That should happen in the first place” If they are contributing to the national economy, and if they are assimilated, they can stay within the US.

“they should go to a legal port of entry and actually become citizens.” So you support a pathway to citizenship? That’s a surprise.

“Yeah, well maybe if you actually understood that due process has SOMETHING to do with the 4th amendment then you wouldn’t be rebutting that. And now, you have changed plans. Before, and I quote, you stated” It does not infringe on Due process because they are getting all legal rights that the state entitles them. And they would be consenting or else they would voluntarily leave and maybe could immigrate to another country.

“This implies that it would not be voluntary. This is basically forcing someone to do something against their will, which is basically slavery, which violates the 13th amendment.” As I said before, they would consent to the work. If they don’t like it, they can leave the US and could immigrate to another country, one that doesn’t encourage assimilation, like Canada(http://www.darrenduncan.net/archived_web_work/voices/voices_v1_n4/mosaic.html). But this should be voluntary, not forced, like deportation. Also, I apologize for this being emotional, but many illegalls have kids in the US. These kids are legal. Would you be willing to break up families in order to deport the illegals?

He signed up for it. Therefore he accepted the terms of the debate. Not to mention that I provided evidence/proof as well, and he forfeited a round. The BOP should be on those wanting something to be illegal. If there is no reason to keep something illegal, then it should be legal.

It is typical that in normative resolutions, the BoP is split. Normative refers to a topic in ehich there is equal ground on each side (i.e the burden of con is to prove that legality of illegal immigrants is bad and vice versa for pro). Also, regardless of the legality of illegal immigration, to state that one side has the BoP is an unfair tactic. It creates a bigger burden for Con than it does for Pro with relatively little reasoning. What does it matter if they are legal or not? This is still a debate with equal ground for debate.

The law says that DACA illegals are allowed to stay here if they prove they are DACA. I also wouldn't use law as a source of morality. By saying illegals should be deported because of the law, one can also make a case that abortions should be legal because of the law. This is both ways, circular logic. Because of this, just because the law says something does not make it right, or unchangeable.

Liberals say immigration laws can be changed. Conservatives tend to use the "They're illegal" excuse.

Conservatives say abortion laws can be changed. Liberals tend to use the "It's legal" excuse.

Can we simply make opinions based off of our own morality instead of what other people have said is moral?

Con cites sources that show illegal immigration don’t commit crimes at a higher rate. Pro cites sources that show the reverse. Pro continues the argument, by providing more detail, which con mostly simply dismisses and instead of talking about the statistics draws the conversation off topic into discussions that it’s unfair that the US should have to punish them at all.

Both sides could have done much better, as they appeared to be talking across each other and not dealing with the others contention, but this one goes to pro due to his pushing of this point in the subsequent rounds which were left unrefuted by con.

In terms of jobs, pro argument that they create jobs as well as taken them helps reduce the inferred harm, but I felt cons argument that the government supports them was not refuted, in my view in the economic harms both sides needed to produce evidence and data to show the economic impact. Pro did help cast a little doubt on the taking jobs front with his sources on baby boomers stating on, but I view con having done better than pro in this exchange.

In terms of education and English speaking: asside from the issues noted above, it seems pro is arguing that on this front there is a lack of harm, rather than a net benefit. As such, I don’t feel that this clearly fits into the contention.

Peo raises the issue of an aging population - that the major benefit of immigration is to balance economic impacts of aging population demographics. Pro doesn’t separate legal and illegal immigration here - which would have made it easy for con to refute - but con mostly just dismissed this.

Throughout I felt that the debate deteriorated leading into the final round, there was challenging of sources, and talk about illegal immigration being bad because it’s illegal. Both sides may have done better here focusing on the contention itself, and tying to show or mitigate the harm - to show immigration is bad and to show that reasons presented why it is bad are untrue respectively.

The final few rounds strayed from this and made it difficult to really follow the harms being proposed.

In the end, I’m in a tough spot here:

I feel on balance pro made individually more logical points and was better reasoned. But I have to weigh the net benefits as proposed and refuted - as this is the contention.

In this vein - I feel con failed to show harm of criminal behaviour and murder, but only just. This is a failure to establish so effectively reduces the impact shown to 0.

I feel pro establishes a net benefit of immigration as a whole with discussion of population demographics.

I have to weight these two, con clearly didn’t refute the demographics, and in my view pro clearly did not refute economic harm. Both claims were supported and specific, but as they are so close: I am not comfortable awarding the arguments either way as it would be within the margin of error of my own bias.

Conduct; Pro.
Con's opening argument was some kind of silly attempt to pull an indirect kritik based on something his opponent said in the comments. Then he forfeited the last two rounds. I feel like I have to slap a conduct point on this for those issues.

Spelling & Grammar; Tie.
Not perfect on either side, and both sets of arguments have some readability issues, but roughly equal.

Sources; Tie.
Pro accuses Con of using biased sources. Con counters that the sources used by Pro are also biased and that attacking a source merely because you don't like the political stance of the author is an ad hominem fallacy. Con eventually admits that since both sides used biased sources they are "even" on this point.

Arguments; Con.
The major arguments in this debate revolved around crime, jobs, taxes and the sources used by each side. Pro said a few other things about "invasion policies" and other vaguely suspicious-sounding things which were never hashed out much, so I can't really comment on any of those. Pro also had a strange hypothetical public policy suggestion...

Pro's opening argument on jobs was to admit that illegal immigrants take jobs, but claim that they also create jobs. Pro also claims that illegal immigrants are better at the jobs they take, but no citation was ever provided to support this claim. Later in the debate Pro also adds a claim that we need immigrants to replace our "aging population." Con rebuts these points both by pointing out the already conceded point that illegal immigrants take jobs from lawful citizens, as well as citing a source showing that our "aging population" (baby boomers) are refusing to retire from the workforce, which is holding back the job opportunities of younger generations. Pro never offered any meaningful counter to this, other than to quibble over the sources which Con used. Since Pro eventually concedes that he also used biased sources and that both parties were "even" in that regard, Pro effectively dropped this point in favor of Con. So Con wins on the jobs issue.

Pro claimed that illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes than legal citizens and cited two sources to support the claim. Con countered by citing a detailed report which debunked the claim that illegal immigrants are law abiding by providing an extremely extensive list of the most common crimes committed by illegal immigrants. Con also cited a report showing that illegal immigrants raise the overall crime rate and a memorial to people that have died as the result of illegal immigrants. As with the jobs issue, the only major rebuttal offered by Pro was to quibble about Con's sources being biased, but Pro eventually concedes this due to his own sources also being biased and thus "even" for both parties. Con's points appear to disprove the claims made by Pro and since Pro drops the issue, Con wins on the crime point.

Pro argued that illegal immigrants pay taxes. Con countered by citing multiple sources showing that illegal immigrants pay less in taxes than the cost of the public services they use, meaning that they still represent a net loss to the government by consuming more than they produce. Pro countered with a very silly rhetorical rebuttal that some citizens also don't pay enough in taxes, so maybe they should be deported too? Con simply rebuts this by pointing out that legal citizens can't be deported because they have a legal right to be here. Con wins this point easily.

Then we have Pro's interesting public policy hypothesis... Pro has this scheme that illegal immigrants can be forcefully relocated to the South-west U.S. where they will be forced to perform manual labor to pay for "assimilation" classes. Pro never explains how this policy would work, how "assimilation" classes would help or how he would tackle the difficult political process needed to enact such a policy. Pro also admits that if illegal immigrants don't like it, they should leave the country, which really seems counter-intuitive to his overall argument. Con points out that this policy doesn't exist, likely won't ever exist and could be easily overturned in court even if it were enacted. Since it isn't really obvious what this argument was meant to accomplish and Con offered a lot of good points against it, I consider it effectively negated.

In one of the final rounds where any arguments were offered, Pro also raised the issue of deporting immigrants resulting in families being separated. Con never offered a response to this, but Pro rather effectively undermined his own argument by admitting that it was an appeal to emotion.

Although Con flubs the first round and the last few rounds, his solid material and volume of sources make a strong case in the middle portion of the debate. Pro's only real counter argument on most of the issues was to complain about biased sources, a problem his own sources shared and which he eventually admitted was "even." Overall this is a solid victory for Con.